h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It always seems slightly unusual to me to meet someone for the first time who you've known for ages online. Not necessarily in a bad way, or uncomfortable or anything like that. It's just the odd combination of on the one hand, knowing so much about someone and having chewed the fat over so many different things, and on the other, never having met at all, and in a way not really knowing them at all.

This contrast is all the greater when the conversations have been weird, bizarre and madcap to the extent that they'd probably get you a nice padded cell of your own.

I wouldn't turn down the padded cell until I found out how the food and coffee were......

I remember the first time I met online folks, back when everyone online was an ax murderer It's made even more fun when you've gotten a total of 3 hours of sleep, and you're riding in the back seat of a car, the front seat of which is occupied by a punster and a silly guy (with really sparkly eyes--though I'm probably the only one that remembers that bit of teasing anymore...)

It's also interesting introducing online folks that you've known for well over a decade to a spouse that still isn't convinced that online friendships can be as real as friendships with folks you can touch... Would've been *really* fun introducing Tom and 2legs

Yes, Amy, our meet-up in '05 was Great. So Sorry GT Bacchus (he moved back home to Texas) is no longer here. He was very interesting and delightful, and his band, something about the revolutionaries, I think. And your youngest there, Notepad ?.. . . .. ...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dietcoke/sets/72157594276764964/detail/

Some of us, are, I'm sure, really very boring, ordinary people in RL who you'd pass on the street, without notice or comment. the shocker is, or was, when you meet someone the first time, and discover they are exactly* like their online self that'd be scarey. Luckily I'm nothing like my online 'me', in RL I'm a lot more... soemthing ...

Actually, that was my elder, PaperKid (though then, she was PaperBaby still)--that was over a decade ago! I'll add arranging a pair of meets around getting me from the airport to the bus station and back again to the interesting list, as well I was actually referring to when I went back east for the so far only time--I flew into New York and rode in the back of tacsatduck's car to Pennsylvania--paul was the punster. Though going from the hotel to Hershey Park with those 2 plus Mr. Christopher playing Questions Only? I was reduced to gasping

I imagine I am the same in real life as online. Although Sho said she thought I would about 7 feet tall (I'm only 5 ft 11).

I enjoy meeting hootooers in real life - the people I know well are as I expect them to be but the people I only see in passing in conversations can be very different.

I remember a researcher I had chatted to quite extensively turning out to be much more good looking and female then the plain boy I had imagined.

Fluffy Pink Rabbit had himself mailed to Hershey Park (in Pennsylvania) so I could pink him up there. On the way bach to the dreaded new jersey Turnpike, the two of us posed for a picture in a cornfield.

"Some of us, are, I'm sure, really very boring, ordinary people in RL who you'd pass on the street, without notice or comment. "

Indeed That reminds me of the Manchester Meet when I wasn't sure if I was in the right place, but then I spotted you sitting at a window seat in the bar - I said to my mum, "That's 2legs!" and I knew I was in the right place

The oddest contrast for me was when I met my partner face to face for the first time. I was so used to sitting on my own at home and creating an imaginary world around us online, that it was quite daunting to meet in the real world and actually be able to touch each other... I managed a handshake (how terribly formal compared to imaginary ballroom dancing ) but D only had to wait another month for a hug

You were rationed to one hug per month?

I think I probably seem more 'normal' in person than I do online. Well, I hope so, anyway!

"You were rationed to one hug per month? "

Nearly but not quite. We lived quite far apart, so after we met for the first time, we scheduled in another meeting a month later, by which time I was more accustomed to the real world so we hugged instead of shaking hands

I met more online people after that. One person from ye olde BBC had a larger than life personality in text, but was surprisingly small in the flesh, and they thought the same about me, so that was an amusing meeting! Someone else had the same name as a person of my acquaintance, so I imagined them to look alike too, but one was blonde and the other brunette, so that was a surprise.

People's voices are also interesting, and their different accents - I read posts on h2g2 with a standard voice in my head and only sometimes do accents come across in a phrasing.

"I think I probably seem more 'normal' in person than I do online. Well, I hope so, anyway! "

If there's anything about me that appears to seem remotely normal, I want it taken outside and fed to the badgers....

What if the badgers won't eat it?

Then I'll send Greg, the transexual chinchilla out to make the badgers spring into action, and have Harry the Minnow to hand, to supervise the distruction of normality in all its oddness if that fails.... there'll be nothing for it, other than to go outside myself, and carefully, and explicitly explain, at great length, to the 'normality' all about nighthoover...... or fondueism

Greg and Harry must seem an odd pair.

Oddly they seem to get on rather well... I mean.. far be it from me to suggest anything... but... I often wonder about harry... he is a little on the camp side... afterall...

It's hard to imagine how a minnow could get into *er* hot water.

As if to prove the title of this journal...

Last night I was asked out on a date by a lovely woman elsewhere on teh interwebs. Now, just like here, I don't use my real name, and neither does she, but we've been chit-chatting away for a while, and having a laugh. But then...she asks me out on a date, (which was the furthest thing from my mind, but flattering), and only then did we find out that she's my cousin.





Talk about wanting the earth to swallow you up. I'm just glad our exchanges thus far were 100% 'good clean fun' in nature.

Yes, that would be unexpected.

But hopefully now you can be much better friends with your cousin.